If you've wanted to help with the Perl community, and specifically
Perl 6, but don't know how, this may be just the ticket.
A thread on perl5-porters turned into a big discussion of Perl 6 and
its perception in the community, and outside of it. Here's the
problem. As PR guy for The Perl Foundation, the only thing I get
asked about Perl 6 is "When will it be done." I can't give an answer
to that, because the development team is not able to give a
reasonable estimate.
So, we discussed how we can discuss Perl 6 and the benefits it brings
to the community, even though we don't have any sort of estimate.
Jesse Vincent, Perl 6 project manager, said:
-- start Jesse --
Perl 5 is very much alive. There's active development. New things are
happening. It's robust and stable. And we're not about to start
introducing weird, backwards incompatible changes. Perl 6 isn't ready
yet. We're starting to get a pretty good idea what it will feel like and
you can play with it today. In fact, many of the new features and ideas
developed as part of Perl 6 have become available as CPAN modules today.
You can add these features to your own production-ready code as they
mature, one by one, as _you're_ ready for them. Perl 6 is being
designed to make using them easier, more intuitive and more flexible.
And when any one of the several different implementations of Perl 6 is
production-ready, you'll be able to use your existing Perl 5 code from
within Perl 6. Your existing investment in Perl 5 is not going to be
obsoleted when you choose to move to Perl 6.
-- end Jesse --
So what are some good things that have come out of Perl 6 already,
and are available TODAY in Perl 5? Here's a short list:
Pugs::Compiler::Rule
Scalar::Defer
feature.pm
Perl6::Take
Perl6::Junction
Any others? What are they?
And, most importantly, who will help me write posts in the Perl
Foundation blog about them? I can help with the writing, but not the
tech side of things.
xoxo,
Andy
--
Andy Lester => andy@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
=> www.petdance.com => AIM:petdance
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